Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665)

by Fancher, Hampton

  How would she respond to that? She’s too young to remember Lenny Bruce. Maybe she read a book about him. He could tell her he knew Lenny’s mother. That was true. And then she would go back to her salad. She ate fast, like she grew up with a brother who stole her food.

  He pulled out his pen, started writing on his napkin. enraged depressed touch of self-hatred boredom too. dread of her own feelings. helplessness. tenderness. masking it. He turned the napkin over: accentuates her insolence with makeup to ward off the weakeners. a woman of resolve . . .

  He looked up. She is looking at him, she looks away.

  She made him think of a cricket pitcher pacing off the distance and throwing the ball all the way to hell. She looked about twenty-five. He is fifty. He keeps writing. suppressed unmet wants unappreciated . . . He paused. Where was her curiosity, her creativity? Taken away, replaced by learning?

  His coffee came, but no cream. There was some on her table.

  “Could you pass me that cream, please?”

  “It isn’t cream.”

  “What is it?”

  “You don’t get cream in Paris. It’s canned milk.”

  That was bullshit, but he wasn’t going to argue with her. She went back to her magazine.

  He stared at the wall, at the other people. He felt warm. He thinks about putting money down and getting out of there. She wasn’t somebody he’d like to sit around a fire with. He glances at the cream. Then at her. She’s not looking. He takes a quick sniff. Maybe it is canned milk. He reflects on the way she passed it. She did it with distance, but she feels close.

  He knows she is fearless. But she will never drop the mask. Maybe in bed. If so, this, this is why she feels close. But she is terrified of being embarrassed. She will take no chances, not of the heart. She needs music, painting, poetry. The great abandon. She is faithless, but faithful. This is why he knows he could love her. She doesn’t believe in a thing. Except not to submit.

  He could tell her about the dog in his building who waits by the elevator for someone who is going to the right floor. It’s a hit-or-miss proposition for the dog. Some tenants know what floor he lives on. But sometimes he gets left on the wrong floor. The dog can’t open the door to the stairway either. His owner is senile. There are so many things he would like to tell her.

  He waited for her to look so he could say something real. Or maybe it would be her who would speak. Tell him she has a weakness for men who have secret jobs. “Like spies?” No, she isn’t talking about the CIA. Tells him she saw a fat guy once who worked in a bookstore, the kind of place professors and writers and fervent women went. That the fat guy looked like a dirty dumb giant, like he’d be better off on a farm, but it would turn out he was a poet. He would have sent her some of his work. How did he get your address? She wouldn’t remember. So what’s so secret about him? But this was not a girl you could press. He’d better say something real. What was real? The unreal. He could tell her about that.

  “You ever felt like you might lose control?” That could scare her, but it would make her look up and listen. “I have fantasies about hitting strangers in the mouth. I get these feelings like one time I’m going to get one of these terrible, totally inappropriate urges that are not really urges, they’re just these awful feelings that mean I wouldn’t be what I am if I followed through, if I actually did it.” “Did what?” “The unthinkable, and I get a kind of sweat inside myself like dizziness and suddenly I’m terrified. Not because I’m angry or frustrated, but just because all of a sudden what if I became something I couldn’t stop, something I didn’t want to be, something I couldn’t explain to myself?”

  For the first time she would smile and say, “Like the wolfman?” And they would laugh. “No, not like the wolfman. More like the panic an epileptic might feel just before it happened.” And she would nod. She would understand and he would be in love for as long as he lived. The insecurity was so intense, but they would have understood each other. He would reach under the table and she would close her fingers around his hand. She would know he was an idealist and could not accept anything as it was, and she would hate that because he would never let her be.

  Out the window he saw the rain had stopped. She was paying her bill—took care of it in perfect French. He put money on the table and followed her down, through the door and into the street.

  He walked behind her and thought about her crying. But he couldn’t really see it. “I cry a lot,” she would say, and he would believe it. She went into the Métro at Concorde, and as they were going down the steps, she ran ahead and he hurried to get to the bottom before she beat him.

  He never got away with anything. If he stole something, he was caught. If he lied, he was found out. If he sneaked into the girl’s room, he was reported. But that year there were two things he did get away with. The second one was major. The first one was just gum.

  He had climbed up on the kitchen counter with no other purpose than for some routine snooping. He found it on the top shelf between a stack of dishes and a bag of something he didn’t bother to open that felt like salt. The gum wasn’t just a pack of five pieces, it was a jumbo pack with smaller packs inside it. He’d never seen anything like this. Dentyne, bright red, sealed, untouched. He could smell the minty cinnamon of it even unopened. Somebody had hidden it for themselves, hidden it from him.

  Duke was at work, his sister not home yet. Only the maid was in the house. She wasn’t really a maid, but that’s what he called her because it made her mad. She was his mother’s aunt Anna and came on afternoons when nobody was home. He wasn’t trusted in the house by himself. Bud was seven.

  By nature Anna was sympathetic, it was hard for her to be strict. When he crossed her, consternation was the best she could come up with. Bud was tricky, he bewildered her; truth was, she found him irresistible. And he knew it.

  He climbed down from the counter and went into his parents’ bedroom. Anna kept her eye on what she was doing, but knew he was in there. He went into the closet, and yelled, What’s that? The Hoover is too loud. Look! Anna turns off the machine. She can only see his back in the closet.

  What’s that? he whispers. Wary, she comes closer. Bud is pointing down at the pile of shoes in the back. He tries to grab her to hurry things along, but she doesn’t want to be hurried. He steps out, giving her room to go in. Down there . . . see? Anna steps in.

  She’s not much taller than him, but twice as wide, also old, complains of sore feet and arthritis. Squinting, she stoops for a closer look. Bud shoves her as hard as he can. Anna goes down.

  He slams the door, locks it. Trapped, she begins to pound and scream, demanding to be let out. I’ll tell your father! And in Spanish too she yells it, then her muffled voice pleading, Please, Buddy! But Buddy is already in the kitchen, crawled up on the cupboard, tearing open the gum, stuffing the little wrappers into his pockets, the pink tangy tabs into his mouth. He’s balanced on the edge of the counter, chewing like a squirrel, hears her voice becoming more desperate.

  She might go nuts if he doesn’t let her out. The family due home any second. The ball of gum getting too big to chew, and he’s got another pack to go, but no time. He scrambles down.

  I’m gonna let you out, Anna!

  No doubt she heard his voice, but not the gum-garbled words. Bud runs out the back door. The ball of gum, still leaking sweetness, but he spits it into his hand and, hard as he can, flings it over the back fence. Puts the unopened pack in his back pocket, then changes his mind and throws that too.

  A change of climate, the advent of a season, subtle as they were, made Bud want to migrate, and it frustrated him that he couldn’t. Behind the house was an alley that went almost a mile, and at least once a week he would go all the way to the end.

  The next day, he’s out there, not for a trek, but to retrieve the unopened pack. He can’t find it, not even the ball of gum he alr
eady chewed. A dog? A bum? He hoped it wasn’t another kid.

  Feeling gypped and uneasy, he waits to be indicted for what he’s done. But it must have been forgotten, or blamed on someone else, he doesn’t know, and never will. Anna’s ordeal was so terrible she didn’t speak of it, or she’s not a fink. Bud decides on the latter and stops calling her the maid, for a while.

  At school he is an outsider. At home he feels at home, but still an outsider. Where he is not an outsider is when he is alone. The Flame and the Arrow is a club of one. He painted the name in red over the door. In the alley he scavenges items of interest to decorate the unpainted walls. A stringless ukulele, a rusted tin lid of a candy box embossed with a faded Queen Victoria. A barrel he had found, rolled in, that once in a while he uses as a toilet. The place had a fetid smell, made it less inviting to guests. Bud didn’t want guests.

  Rawn wasn’t allowed in the Flame and the Arrow. She had her own playhouse, and he wasn’t allowed in hers. It was a whitewashed plywood room with little windows, a chair, and a dresser with a mirror she liked to sit at and look at herself. She called this place the White House. Nobody else did. Nobody called it anything. But they referred to Bud’s playhouse as the shed. A shed is all it was.

  Nobody was sure at that point, but it would turn out that this was the last year of the war. McMurray was too old for it, but said he was in a war two wars back. The Spanish-American. That’s how he got his limp, was wounded in the battle of San Bledo, is what he told Bud. Told him not to tell anybody. Bud didn’t. Just Duke and Rawn. She didn’t care, and had nothing to say. But Duke did, said the old man was lying.

  McMurray smoked Old Golds, always had one in the corner of his mouth. The paper at the lip end soaked with saliva, his nose, which was narrow and fine, always ran. His eyes watered too. He wore gray khaki pants and shirts every day of the week, newly washed and always ironed. Bud figured the old man’s sister, Miss McMurray, did the job. Mostly she kept to herself, had headaches, had to stay in the dark a lot, is what Bud heard.

  There was gossip too. The McMurrays weren’t really brother and sister. Bud believed they were because they looked alike. And why would they say they were if they weren’t? Rawn didn’t know. He asked her if she thought the two of them, when they grew up, would live together. She ridiculed the idea, but he could tell she liked it too.

  McMurray’s limp was from the hip down and the knee didn’t bend, turned his walk into something like a swagger. Once Bud told McMurray he recognized him from a block away, because of his limp. Proud of himself, he told his parents. Instead of approval, he was admonished for it. They wanted him to go over and apologize. Go next door and tell old McMurray he was sorry? Even he knew that wasn’t going to work for anybody. Still, his mother said it was not something to brag about. Brag. He had bragged. He wasn’t positive he knew what it meant, but had an idea and didn’t need to hear any more about it. Then Rawn had to tell him something too. Said what he’d done was “crummy.” He tried to punch her. She punched him back, then went into the bathroom and locked the door.

  McMurray told Bud he had been a first sergeant in the 8th Cavalry, stationed at Fort Bayard, New Mexico, served with Black Jack Pershing in the one against the Mexicans. Bud told Duke. Duke said McMurray was lying again. Why? Because he was afraid of what was waiting for him. Bud wanted to know what that was. Duke said it was rubber underwear, a wheelchair, and if he’s lucky, a nurse. Duke said that if he were McMurray he would kill himself. Bud wanted to tell McMurray what his father had said. But he didn’t.

  McMurray was the air raid warden. A self-appointed position, as it turned out, but Bud didn’t care, the old man had the hat. It said AIR RAID WARDEN in black letters across the back. He had a long flashlight too, and when there was an air raid and the whistle went off, McMurray hobbled up and down the street, shining his light in people’s windows, making sure they stayed in the dark. Bud had seen him do it.

  McMurray had no use for a car, long ago turned his garage into a workshop. Like Bud’s shed, it was made of unfinished wood, but his had a little window and was organized, tools hung neatly on the wall, from large to small. Above the workbench there was an array of cubbyholes containing his collection of rocks. He would pull down the shade, turn on his special lamp, show Bud how some of his rocks could glow.

  Once McMurray told him that Miss McMurray believed that two twelve-foot lizards were in control of the universe. Bud was pretty sure that’s what he said. Sometimes it was hard to tell; McMurray had something wrong with his throat, had to clear it a lot; his voice didn’t always catch. Bud didn’t know what to say, but it was an image that would stick in his mind. Who knew what lizards that big were capable of?

  How come Duke wasn’t in the war is the only question McMurray ever asked Bud, and he answered it himself.

  The reason your dad ain’t in the war is because of his eye. Bud never thought about it till then. Never thought of Duke as a one-eyed man. Never thought of him not being in the war either. When he asked, Duke said he tried to join, but was past the age limit. Also that they like to leave some doctors at home so people can get taken care of. Did he wanna go in the war? Yeah, he did. The eye didn’t help, is all he said about that.

  Duke drank gin out of a shot glass. Bud had one too. Gin looked like water and that’s what Bud got in his glass. When Duke was in the mood, they would have a drink together, clink their glasses. To the war!

  And there were pictures, photographs of pictures really, little ones, that McMurray showed him. Naked Indians on horses at night circling cowboys, shooting at them with arrows. The Old West. McMurray had been there too, had fought the Apaches. Bud wanted one of those pictures. McMurray said he would give him one later (he never did) and went on to explain the difference between unconditional surrender and an armistice. Bud liked unconditional surrender best. So did McMurray.

  Sometimes Bud was tempted to let McMurray in on his Nazi activities, but had the feeling he should be careful. Air raid warden McMurray was long and thin, had a hunchy back, but strong. Bud could feel it when they shook hands. Sometimes the old man would grip him by the neck to help him see an ingredient in one of his rocks. The oldest one he obtained was from a punitive expedition in Mexico. Punitive expedition. Bud liked the term. It meant going somewhere to punish somebody, McMurray said, and in that case it was a Mexican killer by the name of Pancho Villa.

  Generally Rawn kept her distance, but once in a while McMurray would catch her, invite her into his workshop. She was too polite not to go, but she didn’t like it. Never were she and Bud invited together. The neighbors on the other side, the Georges, never invited them to anything. They mostly kept to themselves. Mr. George managed the local gas station, was a patient of Duke’s, and Duke took the Buick there. Mrs. George had bright red hair and wore shorts with pockets in them. Mr. George called her Babe.

  Bud had never had a chance to talk to her. She waved at him once. He wanted to marry her and planned on doing it when he was older. The Georges had no children, but they owned a Chihuahua named Taco. They burned his droppings in their incinerator. Bud’s mother used to shut the windows on trash-burning days and complained, said she was going to take up a petition. The smell intrigued Bud, but he didn’t care for the dog.

  Most of the houses on the block had something besides lawns, incinerators, and single-car garages. The Georges also had a tortoise called Roy. Bud wanted it, but it had a chain through its shell attached to a bolt in the ground. The yard had a small fountain that Mr. George had built, and on the grass around it there were six of the seven dwarfs, made of concrete. But no Snow White. Happy was also missing. Bud liked Grumpy best and tried to steal him once, but Taco made such a fuss he couldn’t get away with it.

  A good thing to do in the night was climb up on the roof of the Flame and the Arrow and watch the Georges through their windows. Sometimes he could see them in bed, looking at the radio. One time he got
Rawn to climb up with him, but she didn’t like watching and he never asked her again.

  In those days a large percent of the killers and loonies were overseas fighting the war, and parents were not so nervous about their kids being outdoors at night. At least Duke wasn’t.

  Sometimes Bud would be missing from his bed by morning. Rawn would find him curled under a coat on the floor of the Flame and the Arrow. It should have got him in trouble, but Bud was always liked. Duke once told him he couldn’t be whipped. Bud thought he meant spanked. No, Duke said, it means you can’t be beat, it means you can’t lose. Bud didn’t believe that. There wasn’t a day went by he didn’t feel like he was losing. There was something that wasn’t there and he knew it, knew it was somewhere else, but he couldn’t get there. Duke said, You might be a liar, but you got integrity. What’s integrity? It’s what you got inside you that never says uncle.

  Duke’s brother, who everybody was proud of, was a major in the Army. On what is called a furlough, Dick came to visit. Brought his two children from the city where they lived so he could drink with his brother and tell war stories. Bud and Rawn would stay up and listen, but his little cousins didn’t get to. The son was four and puny, his sister, high-strung, bit her hand when she was upset. Bud wanted to hurt both of them. Take them up the alley and kill them. They only stayed a week.

  Twyman, the boy, had a tic. Duke told Bud the medical term was echolalia. Under his breath, after anyone said something to him, Twyman would repeat the last sentence. Bud was intrigued and tried it himself for a while.

  That was one good thing; the other was that Dick brought them all presents from the war. A German air raid curtain for Rawn. She was supposed to have a coat made of it. For Duke, a big bottle of English gin. And for Bud, a German bayonet and gas mask. When Dick left, he forgot his combat boots. Bud snatched them immediately, hid them in the Flame and the Arrow. They were too big for walking in, but he did it anyway. He would belt the bayonet to his waist, put on the gas mask, and, still wearing his shoes, slip his feet into the combat boots.